A high-speed network environment typically includes network devices such as access switches, routers, and bridges used to facilitate delivery of information packets and/or data traffic from source devices to destination devices. Information pertaining to the transfer of packet(s) through the network is usually embedded within the packet itself. Each packet traveling through one or more communications networks such as Internet and/or Ethernet can typically be handled independently from other packets in a packet stream or traffic. For example, each router which may include routing, switching, and/or bridging engines processes incoming packets and determines where the packet(s) should be forwarded.
In a high-speed computing network environment, it is critical to maintain high speed traffic flows with minimal data loss and/or packet drop. As such, it is important to detect failures relating to data links and/or connections between the network devices, thereby allowing for traffic flows to be maintained and rerouted so as to reduce packet drop(s). A problem associated with a high-speed computing network is data (or packet) loss due to data connection(s) (or data link) failure. One cause of data loss is to continue sending the data packets to a router over a data link after the data link is already closed (or down).
A conventional approach is to use Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (“RSTP”) or Spanning Tree Protocol (“STP”) to reduce looping and black-holing of data traffic. However, a drawback associated with RSTP is slow response time. For example, RSTP could typically take a few seconds to respond a scenario of remote link failure. Packets or data streams may be lost if a network device is unable to respond to a link failure in a reasonable span of specified time.